Elsmere Canyon Decision Doesn’t End Garbage Battle

Score one for environmentalists. A proposal to build a garbage dump in Elsmere Canyon near Santa Clarita took a fatal blow earlier this month in a legislative ambush engineered by Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon. The Republican lawmaker, who served as Santa Clarita’s first mayor, slipped into federal parks legislation a last-minute provision banning the transfer of land in the Angeles National Forest for use as a landfill. Such a transfer was necessary for the 190-million-ton dump to pencil out.

Browning-Ferris Industries, which bought the proposed landfill site from BKK Corp., criticized McKeon’s tactic as bad public policy. Sounds like a bad case of sour grapes. Backers of the dump got beat at their own game--which is rare--so their soreness and surprise is understandable. But casting themselves as defenders of sound policy seems a little cynical, considering BKK spent $30 million over the past decade--much of it on high-powered lobbyists--in its drive to open the dump. Would BKK and BFI squeal so loudly if some sympathetic lawmaker had slipped in a provision favorable to the dump? Probably not. That’s what lobbyists get paid for.

That aside, the question remains over what to do with the 4,000 tons of garbage Los Angeles generates every day. Landfills remain the cheapest way to dispose of it. But, as we have pointed out before, cheaper is not always better. As old landfills close and new ones open less frequently, the relationship between waste management companies and landfill opponents must change from one of confrontation to one of cooperation. If Southern Californians won’t tolerate landfills, how much are they willing to spend on alternative disposal methods? And how much effort are they willing to put into recycling? Can they throw away less?

Stopping the Elsmere dump was a victory. But it could quickly turn into a loss if the battle is assumed over. Beating dump operators was the easy part, but the enemy in the fight ahead is the mountain of garbage that spills daily from the city. That fight rages on.